Theoretical studies are based on simple models with
somewhat unrealistic assumptions, but they do provide
broad guidelines forappropriate population sizes:
(1) From studies of ultimate gain from many generations
of mass selection, it appears that initial effective
population sizes of 20 to 60 are large enough to
achieve 50 to 90% of the maximum response attainable
from starting with an infinite population size;
(2) The number of generations required to achieve
half of this ultimate gain is approximately 1.4 N.
(Robertson 1960, Bulmer 1985 p 236), so for example,
28 generations of breeding are required (over 300
years for most tree species) to reach half of the
ultimate gain for a breeding population withN =20;